Families call on DC Council to deregulate parent-led playgroups

Parents lobbying the DC Council to reduce regulations on parent-led playgroups may get a decision before the end of the year, as the District’s legislators work to find a solution that does not inconvenience playgroups with overly burdensome and costly regulatory requirements.

Council members took up the issue this fall after DC regulators threatened a Capitol Hill playgroup with closure if the parents didn’t come into immediate compliance.   

Roughly three dozen parents wearing red “Save Parent Playgroups” T-shirts with 10 children in tow showed up at a Committee on Education hearing Nov. 1 to support the “Parent-led Play Cooperative Amendment Act of 2018,” which would exempt parent-led play cooperatives from regulations designed for professional childcare facilities.

Parents said the cooperative playgroups, which allow them to arrange regular play times for children with parents rotating responsibility for supervision, are safe, cost-friendly alternatives to traditional daycare centers, with the added bonus of social interactions for parents and children on a regular basis.

“It’s 100 percent play,” Elisabeth Kidder, a parent of four children who has participated in playgroups for four years, said in support of the bill at the hearing. “It could not be more different than a daycare.”

The council must reconcile the structure of parent-led playgroups with local and federal regulations, as well as the current exemption in the Child Development Facilities Regulation Act of 1998 that applies to “informal parent-supervised neighborhood play groups.” Without passage of the latest bill, the playgroups face myriad requirements — including obtaining a license, hiring a director with a degree in early childhood education, and complying with the city’s daycare law — if regulators conclude that they don’t qualify as “informal.”

The council passed emergency and temporary legislation at the start of October exempting all parent playgroups from licensing requirements for the time being, stalling the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) from shutting them down. The emergency bill will remain in force for 90 days from the Oct. 23 effective date; the temporary measure will last up to 225 days once it takes effect after clearing congressional review.

Ward 6 Council member Charles Allen and Council Chairman Phil Mendelson introduced a permanent version of the bill on Oct. 3. Allen said any regulation and legislation ought to acknowledge that playgroups’ organization and function differ from that of daycare facilities. “It’s kind of tough to put our hands around what it is, but it feels more clear about what it is not — and OSSE has been looking at it, trying to make it fit this box of what it is not,” Allen said at the hearing.

On Sept. 7, OSSE sent investigators to inspect a parent-run playgroup for 2-year-olds named the Capitol Hill Cooperative Play School (CHCPS). OSSE informed the playgroup that it would be shut down if it did not comply with the requirements for daycare centers. At the hearing, OSSE said it was unaware of CHCPS until they received a tip in September. Last year, the Petworth Play Group received a similar notice from OSSE but resolved the issue by moving to a site on federal property. An agency official said OSSE had investigated seven cases of unlicensed care in the past year but did not specify how many of those involved playgroups.   

While regulations aren’t likely to make kids any safer, Kidder said, imposing them puts the existence of playgroups at risk. “Regulation of any kind would be too expensive and too burdensome for a playgroup. It is likely that playgroups subject to daycare regulations would collapse.”

Playgroups are safe, Kidder said, because they are a community built on trust. “Surely if an informal parent-supervised playgroup is safe enough to be exempt from regulation, a parent playgroup with supervised rules is also safe enough to be exempt.”

The structure of CHCPS — which Kidder said has not fundamentally changed since its inception in 1973 — includes a parent-led cooperative and a parent-run nonprofit organization that manages a lease for a room at a church.

Margaret McCulloch, a Ward 6 resident who has a 2-year-old participating in a parent-led playgroup, said OSSE should not infringe on parents’ rights to let their children play together.

“There’s an old joke that you need a license to drive a car, but you do not need a license to be a parent. But that’s the reality — you do not need a license to be a parent,” McCulloch testified. “Nor should you need a license to entrust your child with other neighborhood parents as your children all play together.”

Thomas Nagle, a father of boys ages 2 and 4, said CHCPS provides social and emotional support while also building community ties.

In his first years as a stay-at-home dad, Nagle said he felt isolated and saw that his children needed social interactions with peers. “[CHCPS] provided a welcoming and affordable solution to these emotional needs. Co-ops work great for families like mine who have parents who can commit to regular, active participation in the playgroup,” he said.

Joe Weedon, the Ward 6 representative on the State Board of Education, urged passage of the bill, tweeting that playgroups should keep operating as volunteer, parent-led groups. “Parents volunteering their time to help each other in a cooperative setting, should not have to comply with the same licensing requirements applicable to formal child development facilities,” he wrote last month.

While OSSE does not oppose a general exemption for parent-led play cooperatives from some rules, any legislation needs to ensure compliance with baseline federal requirements meant to protect children’s health and safety, State Superintendent of Education Hanseul Kang testified. “OSEE has an obligation to ensure that every facility or arrangement serving children on a consistent basis takes the necessary precautions to keep children safe,” she said.

Kang said the parent-led playgroups do not meet the “informal” exemption set out in the District’s 1998 law. “Generally we are looking at if there are multiple children, if the care takes place outside of the home, and whether it takes place on a regular basis” to make a determination, Kang said.

In addition to the local law, OSSE adopted regulations in 2016 that provide more specific guidance on whether child supervision is “informal” or “formal.” Whether a playgroup meets one day a week or more, the fact that it follows a regular schedule sets it apart from a one-off arrangement, Kang said.

Kang suggested tailoring the permanent legislation to focus largely on health and safety issues, with restrictions on how frequently playgroups can meet and how young the participating children can be. She also suggested requiring that playgroups develop an emergency plan with drills; meet a minimum adult-to-child ratio; establish a sign-in-and-out procedure for dropping off and picking up children; set up systems for criminal background checks, chickenpox prevention and first aid training; and explain how they will store and administer medication and respond to allergic episodes.

“We understand that parents are well-informed on how to respond to these types of emergencies in their own households when tending to their own children,” Kang said. “However, when caring for other people’s children in a larger group, this task is much more difficult, especially in instances when time is of the essence.”

At-large Council member David Grosso, who chairs the Education Committee, noted that there is some value to regulatory oversight. “I don’t want every single group to come before the council and say, ‘Can you change the statutes on this please?’”

At the end of the hearing, Grosso and Kang agreed to work on finding a solution either through regulation or legislation by the end of year. Grosso also said he would work with representatives from the Petworth and Capitol Hill playgroups, Allen’s office and OSSE to make sure playgroups count as informal entities, but within some parameters concerning children’s health and safety.

Allen said he is “all ears” to Kang’s openness to collaborating with Grosso on a solution. “The emergency legislation buys us some time to be thoughtful about it and to work together,” Allen told Kang after her testimony. “I think if we try to be overly formal, overly regulatory, we will put these entities at risk.”